Nashville Music Scene Quotes

There's been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I've always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

When I was growing up, Nashville was the place to go if you had songs to sell and thought you had talent and wanted to tour and be on Grand Ole Opry [radio show]. It was the big deal back in those days to play the Grand Ole Opry. And you could travel around the world saying, "Hi, I'm Willie from the Grand Ole Opry".

I feel like Nashville has really embraced me with open arms. I was a little worried at first; you know, everybody knows about my immediate past, which is rock music. But everyone is coming to find out that I've been singing country music my whole life.

I started playing guitar, like, when I was 17 or so, but where I'm from, you just don't hear about people moving to Nashville and making it. It was such a foreign thing to me. I never knew music was an option for me.

I was a staff songwriter for Combine Music Publishing in Nashville for seven years. I'd sit around with a groups of friends with a Yamaha piano and a tape recorder and crank out songs.

And I think Taylor Swift is just an exemplary young lady. It's kind of interesting to see what a profound songwriter she is. I don't even think anyone has realized, the long term is going to be the bigger revelation. It's incredible how quickly she writes songs. We've hung out a couple times, we live near each other in Nashville.

These people shred. That's what I was saying about Nashville-you can go to an open mic night at the Holiday Inn and probably see more talented musicians than the ones touring. When we first came down here I was like, "Wow I'm glad we didn't cut our teeth down here, there's so much competition." You're being challenged constantly because you're surrounded by these amazing musicians.

Because we are Nashville-based and predominately a country label, people obviously think of us in that way, and that's fine.

I listen to a lot of Nashville local music, which, for the most part, is punk and grunge music but also alt-country stuff down here.

I had admired Waylon [ Jennings], but I never expected to meet him and get to know him. When I finally moved to Nashville years later, one night I went to a Harlan Howard Guitar Pull thing, and there was Waylon. He started talking about how much he loved my work and how great I was, and I couldn't even get a word in.

I grew up listening to everything. I was in rock n' roll bands and punk bands, and I loved bluegrass and country music, too. Then, when I moved to Nashville, I put out a very traditional country record because that's just what you do. I had a bunch of very traditional country songs. Next thing you know, you're a country singer.

My favorite place in the whole world is Nashville. Because it's my home, it's Music City. It's like, everybody there is so artistic and so creative, and nice! Everybody's really friendly.

I get a lot of my songwriting done while driving around Nashville - sometimes it comes to me that way.

I wrote 'Happy Man' with a couple of boys of mine. I have been writing in Nashville for a long time. Of course I was writing songs back in Oklahoma when I was a kid.

Real folk music long ago went to Nashville and left no known survivors.

I was always drawn to the roots music, bluegrass, blues, early rock - Sun Records, Elvis [Presley]. And I still love that music to this day. Memphis never gets the credit. It's much more musically rich than Nashville ever will be. Nashville manufactured that hokey-hillbilly image way back.

.. the Grand Ole Opry used to come on, and I used to watch that. They used to have some pretty heavy cats, heavy guitar players

Growing up on Franklin Road in Nashville, I had everyone from Johnny Cash to Fats Domino swinging by my house to talk with my mom about my dad. So I had some pretty diverse influences, and I think that shows in my music.

People think it is all about country music, and I know a lot of country music has come out of there, but like Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dillon was recorded there. A lot of great records; R&B records, jazz records. It's a lot of great players and great studios.

And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.

'Band Played On' is a good one. Barbara Orbison, who was Roy's wife, was involved in publishing in Nashville because she oversaw Roy's publishing, and she had a company in Nashville. She had a whole bunch of writers assembled, and they got together every day and wrote, and they write for everybody in Nashville.

Being a guitarist was scary, honestly, as a girl in Nashville. It just felt like no one was gonna ask me to be in a band and play guitar, like I never was gonna get asked to do that.

If you went to school in Nashville, you were aware of all those '60s rockabilly people.

This is my home; I've made it my home for my whole life. I'm an old Nashville veteran.

Dave and I had been song writers in Nashville, trying to get around, out hustling, trying to meet people. We randomly met Hillary out in town one night. She said she was a singer. I asked her if she would like to write some songs with Dave and me, and a week later she came over. Instantaneously we had this chemistry.